Kaiser Dragon comes back to life after 22 years

It took two decades for John Leatherwood to resurrect a friend's rare 1953 Kaiser Dragon — two decades of traveling the country for parts as the project's cost inched upward to nearly $35,000.

By JOEY MILLWOODTimes-News Staff Writer

It took two decades for John Leatherwood to resurrect a friend's rare 1953 Kaiser Dragon — two decades of traveling the country for parts as the project's cost inched upward to nearly $35,000. But later this week, 22 years after the worn-down car was found at a dealership in Georgia, the Dragon will be shipped off to its owner, capped with a restored hood ornament. On Tuesday morning, the car, one of only 1,200 ever made, sat just inside the shadows of the building that has housed it for the last 22 years just off of Seventh Avenue in Hendersonville. As the sun crept across the windshield, the car emerged from the shadows — symbolic of it's long journey.Leatherwood, now 76, was tasked with the challenge of restoring the car by his friend, David Bradley. Bradley found the car at a dealership in Savannah, Ga. A lobbyist in Washington, D.C., Bradley was in town to speak at a convention and went jogging one morning when he saw the Dragon. The car, however, wasn't in good shape.At the time, Leatherwood was the director of Western Carolina Community Action in Hendersonville. Bradley called him and asked if Leatherwood would restore the Dragon, and Leatherwood agreed. He set aside the restoration of his TR 2 that he was about to start on. Instead, Leatherwood connected with Fred Rutherford and found the building to serve as a garage, and the long journey began. “At the time, we thought the car would take two or three years to finish,” Leatherwood said.

He was going to handle the mechanical side of the restoration. Rutherford was going to transform the body. But the two just couldn't find the time through the years to work on the car consistently. It became a “part-time project,” Leatherwood said. The duo traveled the country to find parts when they would hear of other Kaiser Dragons. Rutherford stripped a Dragon in upstate New York one winter. Leatherwood went to Texas for a rare part. The years passed. “Finding the parts for it was really the chore,” Leatherwood said. And for two decades, Bradley sent money to his friend for parts without any end in sight. “The good thing is John probably knows more about building a Kaiser than anyone in the country,” Bradley joked. That may be true. The company made cars for less than two decades. In some cases, Kaisers are extremely rare, Leatherwood said. The duo, with some help from others through the years, basically rebuilt the car. Leatherwood went to extremes to find the right engine parts and paint and even had the hood ornament restored. The hood ornament, brand ornaments and the car's name on the side were all originally gold-plated. Those have all been refinished. Leatherwood spent a little more time on it after he retired from WCCA in 1998. He finished it completely on Tuesday morning and took it for a spin around Hendersonville. Now he's making plans to ship it to his friend.“I'm excited about seeing it,” Bradley said. “We saved a car that might have ended up in the junk yard.”

Even more, the car is symbolic of the friendship the two share. Bradley is the lobbyist for community action groups nationally. The project took around $30,000 to $35,000, and that's with Leatherwood doing all the work for free.“Nobody else would've helped me the way he did,” Bradley said. Leatherwood is shipping the car up to Fredericksburg, Va. this week. The sight of the car's taillights will make him happy, he said. With that project behind, Leatherwood is up for another challenge. “My (Triumph) TR 2 in there,” he said, pointing into the garage at the project he almost started 22 years ago. “We were just waiting to get (the Kaiser) out of the way.”Reach Millwood at 828-694-7881 or at joey.millwood@blueridgenow.com.